


We Don't Live Here No More

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bathing/Washing, Between Seasons/Series, Broken Bones, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Minor Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Past Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Post-Episode: s07e23 Survival of the Fittest, Post-Purgatory, Post-Season/Series 07 Finale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Lisa Braeden, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been more than a year since her memory's been screwed up by that car crash she doesn't remember. It's been more than a year since she's moved back to Cicero and patched together her life. Now, there's a naked guy on her front lawn who's clearly been through the wringer. And nothing adds up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Don't Live Here No More

**Author's Note:**

> **_A/N:_** So. Um. This plot bunny involving post-mindwipe Lisa and post-purgatorial Dean attacked me and wouldn't let go.
> 
> Obviously, this one occurs after _7x23 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST_ and contains heavy spoilers for certain events in _6x21 LET IT BLEED_ but it has nothing with Season 6 or Season 7 as a whole. And anything that happens here will likely be Kripke'd in October.
> 
> A bazillion smishes to **i_speak_tongue** for being awesome giving this such a rock-hard beta and for being all around amazing.
> 
>  _ **Disclaimer:**_ Do not own. Am not making a profit. Just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada.

It happens during a summer thunderstorm.

There are a lot of them that year — far more than usual — but, later, this would be the one she remembers.

She’s unloading the dishes from the dishwasher, placing them back into the cupboard to the soundtrack of Ben watching TV in the living room, when there’s a crack of air, separate and unlike any thunder or lightning, the timing all wrong to be either. Then there’s a plaintive cry, like an animal — frightened and hurt.

She pauses, sets a plastic cup and a ragged dishcloth on the counter, and listens. When the sound doesn’t stop, she pads out of the kitchen. This house is a little smaller than her others and still doesn’t quite feel like home, even though it’s in Cicero and she and Ben have been living here for over a year — ever since they’ve moved back after that car accident where they lost a year’s worth of memories and found themselves inexplicably living in Battle Creek, Michigan. She still has no recollection of ever moving there or what they had been doing or why. It strikes her as weird they both lost approximately the same chunk of memories, that their gaps match up almost identically, even though the doctors can’t come up with a reasonable explanation and tell her to just be grateful they’re both alive and don’t have more missing blanks.

She goes up the stairs to her tiny bedroom and unlatches the gun cabinet on the top shelf of her closet and takes down the weapon. _One can’t be too careful_ , she thinks, hefting the double-barreled sawed-off shotgun into her hands — a gun she still doesn’t remember buying or ever learning how to shoot, but can handle as a clumsy, unwieldy extension of her arm. Ben, too. They’ve been able to ever since that car crash. And she double-checks to make sure it’s loaded. She throws a cursory glance at her windowsill, sees the neat, unbroken line of salt, and feels reassured, safe, as though they’re a barrier between her and the darkness beyond.

Sometimes, when she’s on the fringes of sleep, she thinks she remembers rough hands, sure and gentle, but it always slips away by morning. Shoving the niggling, insubstantial thought out of her mind, she secures her grip around the gun, undoes the two deadbolt locks with her other hand, and pulls in the door.

The figure in the middle of the front walk flinches, flinging up a bony arm to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness. He’s thin, emaciated — she can see his ribs expanding and contracting with each rapid breath, even from this distance — and filthy, the rain making clear tracks where it sluices off his flesh. He’s stark naked.

But she doesn’t fool herself that he’s a helpless babe in a reed basket as she takes stock of his crouched, defensive stance, the way he holds his sharpened stick — _spear_ , she thinks suddenly — before him like a staff.

She raises the gun to her shoulder, bracing it, taking aim, but she doesn’t put her finger on the trigger. Not yet.

“Who are you?” She says, harsher than she intended. “What are you doing here?”

The figure cowers, still hiding his face behind his arm. “Please…” he croaks out, half-whimpering. “P-please don’t hurt me.”

Lisa lowers the gun just as Ben appears at her shoulder. He’s nearly as tall as her, now, his chin just clearing her shoulder and she knows he’ll likely be taller before the year’s out.

“Mom…”

“Stay here,” she orders, cutting him off.

After a moment, she places the gun in Ben’s hands — and goes to the figure in the rain.

She’s instantly soaked to the skin.

She has the feeling that this is one of the stupider things she’s ever done — that she’s the dumb, blonde chick without a byline in a cheap B-grade horror flick — but she can’t _not_ do it, every nerve and fiber compelling her to crouch beside him, to pry the spear from his fingers. It is a task that’s both easier than she’s expected and requires more strength than she’s anticipated expending. His grip is tight, but after a moment, with her coaxing his fist open, massaging his fingers as they unclench, he relinquishes his weapon.

There’s a crack of rolling thunder and a flash of light that throws the world into daylight for a heartbeat and he flinches, huddling in on himself. He whines and she suspects he isn’t aware of the sounds coming from his throat.

“Hey,” she says and her tone comes out louder than she anticipated and he jerks, shying away from her. And it’s then that despite his show of strength, despite the weapon, his stance, she knows he’s been badly hurt and he’s frightened. She glances back at Ben and gestures at him to lower the gun. Ben defers but doesn’t lower his guard. Neither does she. She braces herself to employ some defensive maneuvers in case he decides to strangle her or something equally horrible. “We’re not gonna hurt you, okay?” She whispers, not touching him. He raises his head and in the porch light she can see a flash of awareness, recognition, and then tentative, fragile hope, as though he wants to trust her words but has been burned far too many times for him to do so. It makes her gut clench. “But nudity’s a capital offense here…” she takes a breath, smiles, softening her words. “So why don’t you come inside with us before someone else sees you, huh? It’s a little wet out here.” She rises to her feet, already thinking of calls to the police, maybe the rescue.

He nods uncertainly and takes her outstretched hand. She pulls him upright and there’s a moment where she’s pressed up against him as his shaky legs threaten to buckle from beneath him. She gasps sharply as she notices his right leg is significantly shorter than the other, twisted grotesquely beneath the knee, as though it had been broken and healed all wrong. He doesn’t comment, doesn’t seem to register it as he leans heavily on her and they make their slow way up the four stairs and into the house.

Ben steps back, out of their way as the stranger half-limps, half-hops into the house. Lisa doesn’t miss he’d switched the gun’s safety back on. With a wary gaze, he shuts the door behind them.

“Ben,” she says clearly, startling the dripping, naked, stranger standing in their hallway and for a moment she expects him to drop and curl up in a defensive ball again. He doesn’t. And she doesn’t miss the way his eyes alight on the thick, white lines of salt lining her windows and the slump of relief in his shoulders. She gives him a reassuring smile and turns back to her son. “Can you show our guest the bathroom and then go to your room?” She flashes a warning in her eyes when it’s clear Ben is opening his mouth to complain. “It’s past your bedtime.”

Ben wordlessly clenches his jaw and hands her the gun. He goes to the frightened man and with a kindness she didn’t anticipate, takes him by the hand. “Hi. I’m Ben,” she hears as her son leads him down the hall.

She runs back to her room and secures the weapon. After a moment of hesitation, she goes into Ben’s room, simultaneously twisting up her dripping hair into a knot, and rifles through his drawers, pulling out a clean, but old, pair of boxers and a stretched-out white undershirt. After another couple of seconds, she digs out a torn pair of basketball shorts. They need to be replaced anyways. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she heads back to the downstairs bathroom, passing Ben on the way. Thankfully, he doesn’t say a word about the clothes in her hands.

The bathroom is dark and for a moment she thinks the stranger has bolted but then she sees his dark form huddled up, half wedged behind the toilet. She hits the light switch and he flinches, shading his eyes and lets out a low keen.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” she babbles as she shuts off the bright overhead. She can hear his raspy, desperate breathing as he tries to calm himself. She’s pleased to hear that, despite its shakiness, his breath is coming from his diaphragm the way it’s supposed to be. She tentatively switches on the vanity light. It’s dimmer, more yellow. He jerks but doesn’t freak out. “Is that better?”

He nods.

She sets the clothes beside the sink and lifts the towel from the peg; grateful she had just finished the laundry a little while ago. It is still warm. She crouches, keeping her distance, sensing he needs it as much as she.

“What’s your name?” She asks softly, her voice low and coaching; in the same tone she does guided meditations for her clients.

“D-dean,” he rasps as though he isn’t quite sure of his voice or answer, his green eyes wide and terrified, looking cornered. He licks his lips. “I’m Dean,” he repeats, steadier this time as though he’s reassuring himself.

The confusion in his eyes make her swallow and something inside her lurches, clicks, skips, and continues as though nothing happened — like a corrupt CD working itself out of a scratch and finding its place again. His name sounds familiar in a way she can’t place. She has the weirdest feeling it has to do with the car accident and the huge blank gap in her memory. It frustrates her the way the pieces don’t fit. But more than that, she knows she has to help him. And that she won’t be making any phone calls.

Giving him space, she edges a step backwards and smiles at him. She doesn’t miss the way he sags. “Hello, Dean. I’m Lisa.”

She hands him the bath towel and he holds it in wonderment for a long moment before swiping himself with the soft cloth. His eyes close, but she can’t tell if it’s pain or pleasure. Layers of mud and grime lift, revealing deep purple-black bruises along his ribs. When he’s dry, she takes the dirt-streaked terrycloth from him when it’s clear he’s at a loss what to do with it, and sets it beside her. She isn’t surprised when she hands him Ben’s clothes and has to help him into them. They fit but only just.

“Thank you,” he croaks when she’s finished sliding the t-shirt down his torso. She isn’t sure if the gratitude is for the clothes, her help, or for the fact she didn’t comment on his scars or the missing tip of his left index finger.

She rises to her feet and offers her hand. He takes it, sliding his left hand in her palm. She can feel the hard knot of healed tissue, the blunt end where the finger has been severed at the knuckle. She inadvertently brushes her fingertip against it and Dean flinches, tenses, and starts to tug his hand away. She tightens her hold and shakes her head. “It’s okay. I don’t mind,” she tells him, hoping her smile is convincing and reassuring.

She leads him through the house and he balks at the living room entrance. She glances up at him, confused, and he shakes his head. “Please,” he croaks, staring wide-eyed at the sofa and comfortable chairs and soft throws. “I c-can’t…”

She nods. “Okay. Will the kitchen be all right?” She turns, guides him to the kitchen and he relaxes marginally. “Make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to eat? Drink?”

Dean shakes his head, slides awkwardly to the floor, propping his back against a wall and stretching out his bad leg before him. No amount of convincing budges him from the spot.

Despite his refusal, she offers him a glass of pink lemonade, of all things, which he drinks too quickly, thirstily and desperately. She’s about to warn him to take it easy or else it’ll bounce back up, when he hands her the empty cup.

A moment later, he’s somehow on his feet and vomiting in her sink. She stands beside him, offering herself as a support, rubbing his back as he heaves. They stay there for what seems like a long time, even after he’s finished coughing and gagging and she’s washed the bile down the drain. He blinks up at her, his eyes red-rimmed and exhausted.

“You wanna lie down?” she offers, suddenly embarrassed about the intimacy they’d just shared. The familiarity between them, the way she’d gotten close in a way she hadn’t been able to with anyone else in over a year. She tugs her hands back.

Dean shakes his head, squeezes the edge of the counter as he pivots and hops back to the corner he’s claimed as his, occasionally grabbing onto furniture and walls for support.

When he’s settled and curled in the small space, she crouches, facing him. She takes a deep breath and places her cell phone into his hands and meets his teary gaze. “You got someone to call?” she whispers.

There’s a hesitation, a small nod. “I don’t…” his voice is scratchy and painful-sounding from disuse.

“It’s okay,” she tells him smoothly, recognizing the confusion in his eyes. It’s the same one she’s seen in Ben’s when he’s trying to remember something that’s just outside his grasp. “Just close your eyes and try it — don’t think too hard. Trust yourself.” She’s aware she sounds like the doctors and therapists who coached her and Ben back in the beginning, trying futilely to help them regain what they’ve lost, and falls silent before she can get his hopes too high.

He nods, does what she tells him. She doesn’t take her eyes off his fingers slow, clumsy and deliberate.

He lifts the phone to his ear.

_The number you have called is no longer in order. Please hang up and dial again. The number you have called is no longer in order. Please hang up and dial again. The number you…_

Dean lets out a harsh sound in the back of his throat that sounds something like a sob and he lets his head drop between his knees, his hand still clawed around the phone.

Gently, Lisa reaches around him and presses the red END button, cutting off the incessant, mechanical jabbering. When Dean curls into her arms, leaning into her, she leaves them there, offering him what thin, scant comfort she can. She rocks back and forth in time to his weeping, raw-edged with something far more than disappointment. She doesn’t push him, doesn’t tell him to try again — god knows the doctors did and it pissed her off to no end the way her best didn’t seem good enough, as though she hadn’t tried her hardest.

He lets out a shaky exhale and smears a palm down the length of his face. She’s absurdly grateful it’s his right hand so she doesn’t have to stare at the shortened digit. He cradles the phone in his palm and presses his lips firmly together. He presses another numeric combination and holds the cell phone to his ear. This time it rings and rings and rings and rings. There’s obviously no answering machine and it continues to ring shrilly. Dean waits patiently and around the twentieth ring, someone picks up.

“Dad…?” Dean’s voice is fragile and hopeful. The expression on his face slips for a second and then he smiles with recognition and relief. “Yeah… It’s me…” He falls silent and Lisa can hear someone talking on the other end although she can’t make out any of the words. “I… I… Okay.” Dean flips the phone shut and a moment later it rings. “Sammy?” He answers before the first ring even finishes. “I-I don’t…” He trails off, looks up helplessly at Lisa.

Lisa gently eases the phone out of his hand and holds it up to her ear. “’Lo? Lisa Braeden, speaking. Who is this?” She pauses, listens to the soft-spoken, almost shy young man on the other end. He asks her several careful questions. “Nice to meet you, Sam. Yes, Dean’s here. My address is One-Eight-Two Farmington Street, Cicero Indiana.” She hears a tapping on the other end and, after a brief pause, Sam’s voice comes back.

“It’ll take me eight to ten hours to get there. Could… Would you mind Dean staying…?”

“We’ll be here,” Lisa reassures him. “I’ll look after him, don’t worry. Take your time. Drive safe,” she says and pulls the phone from her ear. “Your brother’s coming,” she tells Dean, handing the phone back to him. “Would you like to say something?” Dean takes the phone back, holds it up to his ear and makes a couple of committal grunts before shutting the phone. He meets her gaze with wide, terrified eyes, looking for all the world as a little kid being abandoned at sleep-away camp by his parents.

“It’s going to take him a few hours to get here. You’re more than welcome to stay until Sam comes. D’you want to move to the couch? It’ll be more comfortable and you can catch some sleep or watch TV.”

Dean ducks his head and shakes it. “N-no. I…” he takes a steadying breath. “I’m good.”

Lisa swallows hard. “Well, then at least let me get you some pillows and blankets, okay?” She doesn’t wait for his answer as she quickly leaves to gather her supplies from the living room. When she returns, Dean is half-asleep and pliable when she wedges the pink tasseled pillow between his head and the wall and tucks the soft, plush polarfleece throw around him. For reasons she can’t explain, even to herself, she settles in beside him and opens a book, keeping watch.

Near dawn, the doorbell chimes and there’s a knock at her door and she leaves Dean’s dozing form for a moment. She cracks open her door for the second time that night, standing behind it as a shield. On the other side of her threshold is a tall man, taller than Dean. Despite his imposing height, his face is lined with worry and sorrow and strain and she doesn’t get a sense of danger from him. “Hi,” he whispers shyly, his shaggy hair dripping into his collar. “I’m Sam. You…”

Lisa steps back, opening her door wider, inviting him in. “He’s been waiting for you. Come on in.”

Sam shifts from foot to foot, the thumb of one hand rubbing into the palm of the other, and she suddenly thinks of Ben when he’s done something wrong and knows he’s going to get hell for it. She gestures into her hall and, after a moment, he nervously steps across the threshold, unconsciously ducking his head and, like his brother, doesn’t even twitch as he crosses the complicated symbol spray-painted on the underside of her welcome mat. He politely, anxiously, waits as she shuts and latches the door behind him, suddenly seeming huger in the small space. His eyes are red-rimmed, exhausted and he suddenly seems so very young even though she can tell he — like Dean — has been through the wringer.

“Is he…?” Sam whispers.

“He’s pretty shaken up,” she tells him, flashing him a reassuring grin, guessing at his question as she leads him into the kitchen, halting in the doorway. “He’s got some old injuries that… I don’t know how long ago…. I mean, if you….” She takes a breath, aware she’s babbling. “They’re scars, mostly. Anyways. He’s not bleeding or in pain, as far as I can tell. Just… scared, you know?” She nods at Sam to go on.

Sam walks into the room, his footsteps quiet despite his boots, winding around the island and the table until he reaches the corner where Dean’s crouched up and kneels besides his brother. He shakes Dean’s shoulder and deflects a blow before they’re suddenly tangled up in a bone-crushing hug. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought one of them came back from the dead.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think…” Sam’s voice trails off, burying his face into Ben’s shirt. Lisa steps closer and catches his tumbling, desperate explanation — “It took me a while with everything, but I found a spell to get you out and the rough translation went something like _the place where no one betrayed_ so I went to Bobby’s and summoned you from there because I figured…” Sam takes a breath. “It just never occurred to me that it meant a _person_ and that the person had to be alive… Fuck, Dean, I’m sorry. I wanted… Christ, thank god for Lisa… If she hadn’t…”

She sees Dean fist his hand in Sam’s shirt and there’s a mumbled, slurred, “Shut up, Sam. You got me out…”

When she catches the words “I’m not going anywhere…” she backs away, granting them privacy. She knows Sam’s words are not meant for her and that she shouldn’t be a part of this.

They fall quiet and after a long moment, Sam carefully drags Dean to his feet, taking on his brother’s weight when it’s clear Dean can’t support himself, and she catches a flash of pain and sudden awareness across Sam’s features and knows the younger man’s seen Dean’s mangled leg. He visibly stiffens, swallows, and she gets the sense it’s a more recent injury, one he hasn’t seen before. To Sam’s credit, he doesn’t say anything and tightens his grip as they make their way across the room towards her.

They pause at the doorway, Sam bearing almost all of Dean’s weight and she can tell it’s not a burden for him — that they’ve done this before and it’s as much Dean allowing Sam as it is both of them needing it. Dean looks exhausted, wiped.

“Get some sleep,” she tells him softly by way of goodbye.

Sam’s eyes are teary as they meet hers. “Thank you,” he says. “For everything. We don’t deserve you.” He takes a breath. “If there’s anything you need — and I mean _anything_ — you have my number. Call us, okay? Anytime. Anywhere. I don’t know how we can repay you.”

She tilts her head at him, her brow furrowing in confusion. She senses he’s talking about more than tonight, that there’s more between them, between her and Dean. She shrugs off the stomach-dropping feeling of having missed a step somewhere and wordlessly leads them through the house and lets them out, standing in the doorway as she watches the brothers hobble down the steps to her walkway towards a sleek, black beast of a classic car in a gimpy, three-legged gait, Dean leaning heavily on Sam. She bends her elbow, raising her hand slightly.

They’re almost at the car when: “Wait,” she hears Dean rasp out and sees Sam pause.

Dean shrugs off Sam’s hold and doubles back to her, his gait a loping, limping hop. He seizes both handrails and pulls himself up the steps to her. She’s too startled to say anything when he reaches out carefully with his left hand, moving slowly as though he’s scared to spook her. Gently, far more tenderly than she’d ever expected of him, he cups her right cheek, tilting up her chin with his thumb, his amputated index finger pressing at her temple, not quite reaching into her hair. He hesitates and then kisses her, as though she’s meant something to him once. She instinctively rises up on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around his neck without putting any of her weight on him, and deepens the kiss. It feels exactly right.

He breaks it off, pulling back slightly, but he doesn’t withdraw his hand.

“I’m so sorry, Lise,” he whispers hoarsely. “If I could undo everything, I would. I’m sorry I totaled your car that time and I’m sorry I crashed into you again.” He drops his gaze, licks his lips, and, with one last shaky exhale, he abruptly turns from her, limping down the stairs and hopping back to Sam.

They get into the car, Dean in the passenger, Sam going around to the driver’s side, and drive away into the night.

She stands on the porch for a long time, watching the road until the midnight black sky lighten to violet to indigo to gray to orange, and finally goes back inside, swiping her hand through the salt line on the adjacent windowsill.


End file.
